The optimum time for drug licensing
James Kalamas & Gary Pinkus
James Kalamas is a Principal and Gary Pinkus a Director in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Products Practice, McKinsey & Company, 555 California Street, Suite 4700, San Francisco, California 94104, USA.
james_kalamas@mckinsey.com
gary_pinkus@mckinsey.com
As the fortunes of 'big pharma' and the biotech industry become inextricably linked, effective drug licensing is becoming increasingly important. For the pharmaceutical industry, innovative biotech compounds have served to buttress lagging R&D productivity; whereas for biotech, partnerships with pharma have provided a stable source of much needed capital in the face of volatile public markets. In addition, pharma brings clinical development, portfolio management and commercialization skills that are lacking in many biotech companies. The optimal timing for drug licensing is an important strategic question, and the general view in both pharma and biotech is that the right time for these deals is during Phase II clinical development, although most deals take place sometime between preclinical and Phase II development. However, our analysis shows that pharma and biotech could create more value for themselves by doing deals earlier. To realize this value, both parties will need to change their approaches to drug licensing — both internally and in their dealings with potential partners....
nature.com |
